A long-term trend of increasing unemployment in Wyoming continued again in May, according to a senior state economist.

David Bullard says the only good news is that the statewide increase between April was only from 5.5 percent to 5.6 percent, which he says is "not a statistically significant change."

But the long-term picture is considerably worse, with every county in the state except Teton County showing a higher jobless rate than a year ago.

Bullard says nothing in the new report is surprising, given the low energy prices that continue to plague the state economy.

The state's energy producing counties have been hit the hardest. That includes Campbell County (up from 3.8 percent in May of 2015 to 8.0 percent last month), Natrona County (4.8 percent to 7.5 percent) and Converse (3.7 percent to 6.3 percent).

Campbell, Natrona and Fremont (7.2 percent) had the highest jobless rates in the state last month. The lowest unemployment rate was found in Albany (2.9 percent), Niobrara (3.1 percent) and Laramie (4.0) counties.

The statewide jobless rate in May of 2015 was 4.2 percent, which means the unemployment rate last month was up by 1.4 percent year-over-year according to the report.

The U.S. unemployment rate last month was 4.7 percent.

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